WSJ goes after WEF for racism, sexism, ageism. Ya' mean it's not all butterflies and flowers and DEI in Davos?
Schwab even came on to his female employees!
They must have gone too far. The WEF is no longer fit for the Globalist purpose, apparently. The WSJ interviewed 80 former employees and tells us there are hundreds in an online WEFugees group! It turns out the WEF does not abide with its stirring messages of a great reset ahead.
OMG, were they not serious? Did they make it up just to convince us to go along?
Is the WEF like Obama: pretty words, but his actions only supported big business?
Thanks to the WSJ for taking a peek behind the Schwabian curtain.
Behind Davos, Claims of a Toxic Workplace
Despite its lofty goals, the World Economic Forum has faced numerous accusations of sexual harassment and discrimination against women and Black people
World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab.
World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab. ILLUSTRATION: ELENA SCOTTI, ASSOCIATED PRESS, BLOOMBERG NEWS
By Shalini Ramachandran and Khadeeja Safdar
June 29, 2024 9:00 pm ET
https://www.wsj.com/business/world-economic-forum-klaus-schwab-discrimination-harassment-de285594
A few years ago Klaus Schwab, the octogenarian founder of the World Economic Forum, decided the organization needed a youthful makeover.
So he singled out a group of employees over 50 years old and instructed his human-resources chief to get rid of them all, according to people familiar with the matter. This, he explained, would lower the average age of the workforce. The HR chief, a seasoned former World Bank executive named Paolo Gallo, declined, pointing out that there has to be a reasonable explanation for firing somebody, such as poor performance. Not long after, Schwab fired Gallo.
It wasn’t the only example of Schwab engaging in behavior that would violate standard workplace policies of the Forum’s leading corporate partners. One episode still making the rounds among staffers is the time in 2017 he tapped a young woman to lead an initiative for startups. She had discovered she was pregnant, and during her first few days on the job went into Schwab’s office in Geneva to tell him.
Schwab grew upset that she wouldn’t be able to continue working at the same pace, people familiar with the incident said, and told her she wasn’t suited for her new leadership role. She was pushed out after what the Forum said was a brief trial period.
The World Economic Forum, the organization behind the annual Davos gathering of world leaders and chief executives, says its mission is no less than to improve the state of the world.
But under Schwab’s decadeslong oversight, the Forum has allowed to fester an atmosphere hostile to women and Black people in its own workplace, according to internal complaints, email exchanges and interviews with dozens of current and former Forum employees and other people familiar with the Forum’s practices.
The annual gathering of the World Economic Forum in Davos was ripe for sexual harassment, some former staffers say. Photo: Denis Balibouse/Reuters
At least six female staffers were pushed out or otherwise saw their careers suffer when they were pregnant or returning from maternity leave. Another half dozen described sexual harassment they experienced at the hands of senior managers, some of whom remain at the Forum. Two said they were sexually harassed years ago by VIPs at Forum gatherings, including at Davos, where female staff were expected to be at the delegates’ beck and call.
In two more recent incidents, employees registered internal complaints after white Forum managers used the N-word around Black employees. Black employees also raised formal complaints to Forum leaders about being passed over for promotions or left out of Davos.
The Forum declined to make Schwab available for an interview. Forum spokesman Yann Zopf said in a statement that this article would “mischaracterize our organization, culture and colleagues, including our founder.”
In written responses to the Journal, the Forum said it holds itself and its employees to a high set of values, with confidential reporting channels and a thorough investigation process. It said Schwab never created an age limit for employees and that he collaborated with the HR chief to make it possible for people to work beyond the normal retirement age.
It disputed the Journal’s characterization of events and said the organization has zero tolerance for harassment or discrimination and has responded appropriately to any complaints received. It said there have been three reported allegations of racial discrimination since 2020 and that each has been thoroughly investigated and appropriate action was taken.
The Forum added that many of the episodes described by the Journal, including those alleging pregnancy discrimination, involved former employees who had been dismissed for performance reasons or as part of restructurings. A Forum spokesman said women don’t face a higher rate of turnover after parental leave and that at least 150 employees returned from leave to the same or a better job during an eight-year span.
In a memo to staff on May 21, Schwab announced that he planned to step aside as executive chairman, which he indicated was part of a long-planned transition. He said he will stay on as nonexecutive chairman of the board of trustees. The announcement came after Schwab sent a letter to the Journal’s publisher and editor in chief to share concerns about the reporting for this article.
The Forum’s workplace culture is particularly distressing to many employees because of the organization’s public stances promoting gender equality. It publishes an annual “Global Gender Gap Report” that details various countries’ progress toward gender parity. Some of the allegations of mistreatment came from former members of the very team that put it together.
Topaz Smith, who gave birth to twins last year, said she was told a week before returning from maternity leave that her role had been eliminated. Photo: Kayana Szymczak for WSJ
“That was the most disappointing thing, to see the distance between what the Forum aspires to and what happens behind the scenes,” said Cheryl Martin, a former U.S. Energy Department official who served as a top Forum executive.
The Journal interviewed more than 80 current and former employees ranging in tenure from as far back as the 1980s through the present day. Some of them have bonded over what they describe as shared trauma in a WhatsApp group called “WEFugees” that has hundreds of former employees.
“It was distressing to witness colleagues visibly withdraw from themselves with the onslaught of harassment at the hands of high-level staff, going from social and cheerful to self-isolating, avoiding eye contact, sharing nightmares for years after,” said Farid Ben Amor, a former U.S. media executive who worked at the Forum for more than a year before resigning in 2019. “It’s particularly distressing when contrasted with the eagerness and earnestness with which many of us joined the Forum.”
The Boss
Schwab was a young German academic when he created the first Davos conference in 1971. He has built the event into a global summit that convenes world leaders, billionaires and celebrities. (Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, is a Forum partner and has a high-profile presence at the annual event in Davos.)
Over five decades as its leader, Schwab has also grown the Forum from a small nonprofit into a sprawling organization generating more than $400 million in annual revenue, with about 1,000 employees in Geneva, New York and other cities. Many of them came in as young professionals eager to change the world. Some said they benefited from their time at the Forum, met intellectual colleagues and had benevolent bosses.
Others painted a darker picture, saying that women were routinely sexualized and objectified, a tone they said was set at the very top of the organization. Since the Forum’s earliest years, staffers say women received warnings about Schwab: If you find yourself alone with him, he may make uncomfortable comments about your appearance. They describe his behavior as more awkward than menacing, but inappropriate for a leader. Schwab has been married to his wife Hilde, his former assistant, since 1971.
Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, delivers the welcoming address at organization’s 50th annual meeting in Davos in 2020. Photo: Gian Ehrenzeller/EPA/Shutterstock
Barbara Erskine, a former Forum communications executive, said that Schwab told a board member to tell her that she needed to lose weight. Schwab told other executives that she had no charm, said Erskine, who spent a decade at the Forum and left in 2000.
Three women who worked in Geneva closely with Schwab—a receptionist, a personal assistant, and a European staffer—told the Journal that the boss over several decades made suggestive comments to them that made them uncomfortable. Several other co-workers said they were aware of Schwab’s behavior with each of the women.
The receptionist who worked for Schwab said he asked her to private dinners and excursions. She said she had to be really clear with him more than once “what kind of relationship I wanted: professional and nothing sexual.”
Myriam Boussina, who worked at the Forum in the 1990s as Schwab’s personal assistant and in a role handling partner companies, said Schwab complimented her attire, haircut and body in a way that was inappropriate for a workplace and made her uncomfortable.
“I knew he liked me and I knew he found me pretty,” Boussina said. “Every man with a lot of power, they think that they can get any woman and they are not ashamed.”
She said there was no real human-resources department at the time she could notify. “You could not go and complain, it was impossible,” she said.
The Forum said Schwab has never made sexual advances toward an employee and the women’s allegations were vague and false. “Mr. Schwab does not and has never engaged in the vulgar behaviors you describe,” a Forum spokesman said.
The European staffer, who worked in Geneva in the 2000s, said Schwab never crossed the line to physical contact with her, but that his pattern of suggestive remarks and behavior was “a horrible thing as a woman to go through.” Once, she said, he propped his leg up on her desk with his crotch in front of her face and told her he wished she was Hawaiian because he’d like to see her in a Hawaiian costume.
“I need to find you a man, and if I were not married, I would put myself on the top of that list,” Schwab told her more than once, she said.
A former senior Forum executive confirmed that the European staffer told him about some of Schwab’s flirtatious comments to her not long after.
The Forum’s headquarters in Cologny, Switzerland, overlook Lake Geneva.
He and another Forum staffer said they witnessed Schwab strike the crotch pose in front of the European staffer and other women.
The Forum said Schwab never did such a thing. “This is disgusting and incorrect,” the Forum spokesman said, adding that Schwab wasn’t familiar with Hawaiian costumes.
‘White on Blue Action’
The Forum is an international organization but it is also a family affair. Schwab’s two children hold senior roles at the Forum, and his wife is co-chair of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, which is a sister organization of the Forum.
The Forum’s bylaws say that Schwab or at least one member of his immediate family must be on the Board of Trustees. The bylaws add: “The Founder himself designates his successor in the Board.”
The Board of Trustees consists of about 30 members from various sectors of life, including cellist Yo-Yo Ma, Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan and the heads of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, according to the Forum’s website.
Old timers at the Forum said Schwab liked to hire attractive people, who typically staffed the annual event at Davos. Former Forum executives said the situation was ripe for sexual harassment and that several staffers complained to them about inappropriate behavior by partners. There was even a term for sexual contact between VIPs and Forum staffers, said a former employee: “white on blue action,” for the color of badges worn by the two parties.
The Forum said it has a zero-tolerance policy of harassment at its events, and that reports of any such incidents would be immediately investigated and appropriate action taken. It said it wasn’t familiar with the term “white on blue action.”
Female staffers said their colleagues—especially male ones—would often remark on their appearance. “There was a lot of pressure to be good-looking and wear tight dresses,” said one woman who worked there in the 2010s. “Never in my career have I experienced looks being such an important topic as in the Forum.”
She said it was common for young staffers to be propositioned by Forum event attendees. At a WEF Africa summit, she recalls a CEO asking if she wanted to come back to his room and have a special Japanese whisky with him. She said no.
Cheryl Martin, a former official with the U.S. Energy Department, said she sought internal changes to address harassment issues during her time on the Forum’s managing board. Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg News
Another woman, who joined the Forum in 2006, said she would receive texts from Forum partners saying, “You look pretty today” and asking to get a drink after the day’s events. She said she had to fend off one government minister who called her with a supposed problem in his hotel room.
“Our male colleagues received different kinds of messages from constituents, like do you know if there are any girls to go out with this evening,” she said. “We never really felt protected.”
Martin, the former Energy Department official, said she sought internal changes to address the harassment issue during her time on the Forum’s managing board. She said she pushed to strengthen the code of conduct at Davos and encourage employees to report any harassment at the event.
She said Schwab and other managing board members viewed her advocacy as overreacting. In 2018, she said, Schwab changed her role in a way that stripped her of responsibilities, staff and budget resources. He never told her why. Martin resigned later that year. The Forum said she was given new responsibilities before she decided to leave.
“I changed what I could, and when I realized that I was really not able to do any more, I resigned,” she said. “You lifted the rocks you could.”
Unwanted Touching
The Forum kept on—and, in some cases, promoted—around a dozen managers against whom there were specific complaints lodged over the years, according to interviews with complainants and documents reviewed by the Journal that were sent to HR or other senior leaders. The Forum said it investigates all complaints, terminated those who violated its policies and concluded that some were without merit.
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